I'd agree about the subscription being an elephant in the room, and it's put some doubt in my mind too. But I can't agree about LR's B&W conversions being inept - Auto is indeed useless, but you can do excellent B&W with Lightroom alone.
Thanks for your comment. It prompted me to re-check. The problems I had with LR in B&W were my own doing. I did get very usable results with LR once I learned better.
So I take it back, LR B&W conversions are far from inept.
SFX is still better, though.
